Science: Will wayward asteroid become a moon of Jupiter?

An astronomer in the US has discovered an asteroid that crosses the orbit of the planet Jupiter. Such asteroids are members of a rare class and may hold clues to the nature and origin of some of Jupiter's family of 16 satellites.

Carolyn Shoemaker at Palomar Observatory in Calfornia discovered the new 'Jupiter-crosser', designated 1990 UL3, in early November last year. Shoemaker was examining photographs she and her colleague, David Levy, had taken with the observatory's 46-centimetre telescope on 25 October. The asteroid was moving south along the border between the constellations of Pisces and Aries.

Very few asteroids cross the orbit of Jupiter, even though many bodies are known to orbit outside the main asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The most famous Jupiter-crosser is Hidalgo, which was discovered in 1920. Hidalgo travels from the asteroid belt out as far as the orbit of ...

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